reunion

I attended an Insight reunion/seminar last weekend and reunited with people I haven't seen in twenty years. With some, it was like yesterday. I felt the same kind of connection as I recalled emotions we had shared in various hotel ballrooms. I personally was looking to rekindle some of the magic those early seminars had provided.

I wasn't disappointed. All the clichés about "you can never go home again" are true and then again, they aren't. I went home to a place I'd almost forgotten existed. "Self-help" workshops were incredibly popular in the seventies and eighties, beginning with Est and branching out to Insight, Lifestream, Life Spring, and others. The word cult was bandied about by those who had never participated in those workshops, because whenever something new or different or strange sounding is feared like that, divisions are created.

I remember my first seminar. Not every exercise or process that we did, but the way I felt each night when I went home… like I'd been put through a wringer. They talk about peeling the onion, and I was one onion that didn't especially want to be peeled. Throughout my life, I had carefully built a fortress of walls to protect myself and my image of myself. The walls were coming down and it was terrifying.

This kind of work is hard and perhaps it's not for everyone. But it was one of the best things I ever did. So the weekend reminded me of what it's like to be in a room with an assortment of people who have chosen integrity over the mask.

I have to admit, there was some concern on my part that the folks I knew twenty years ago would not understand (or would challenge) my most recent life choice/direction. And some did. What was evident was that my mask was still off and my "new" self was as authentic as whoever it was they remembered. Way cool.

resolutions?

It wasn't until I read something on facebook (yes, I now have a face on facebook... long story) about someone making New Year's resolutions that it even occurred to me that I hadn't. Not only had I not made any this year, I hadn't even thought about making any. So what does that mean? 

For one thing, it means the past week, the Christmas Octave, (for those in the liturgical know) and beyond... I've done just about the bare minimum. It's been a week of rest and reading good books. Never, since I've been in community have there been so many sleep-in days actually scheduled. It's a first.

This unexpected rest time came about organically I think. Nothing was premeditated. We had our usual Christmas week schedule intact, with Lauds and Vespers as the bookends for the days of possible social and rest times, excursions into the city for movies or other events. There was an overnight period of fellowship planned with the Melrose sisters the weekend after Christmas. None of that happened. They were just getting over the flu, plus one sister had broken her foot, was in a cast, and not yet able to travel. They didn't come.

We rallied once for a movie, three of us (plus the aide) taking the two elders in a taxi convoy to the Lincoln Plaza for "Last Chance Harvey" but otherwise it was just too cold for ventures out. Our cook was away for the holidays and we grazed our way through the refrigerator finishing up the leftovers. I cooked something most nights, but otherwise I rested.

Then the modified rest evolved... into full days of rest until Vespers. I cannot tell you what a difference it made. The sheer luxury of waking up in a freezing cold room and not having to jump up out of bed was one thing, but being able to turn over and snuggle beneath the covers and dream was the best gift I've received this year. (And I received some really good gifts.)

Today we are back on schedule, and unlike my silent retreat of a few weeks ago, I'm rested and ready for the change. Perhaps one of my New Year's resolutions will be to remember just how much I need to schedule rest and relaxation before I'm at the point of burnout.

Hard lessons

Last Sunday I attended mass at my old church in Jacksonville, Florida. The new rector, who I'd just met two days before at the rehearsal dinner, sidled up to me and said "I don't really like today's lessons. Why don't you preach the sermon?" I laughed. I actually hadn't read Sunday's lessons yet, so I was curious to hear them, and then to see how he preached them. 

Ah yes ... the vineyard owner, both versions: the original from Isaiah, and the one Jesus told as a parable. It's always good to hear his source material in context with the Gospel reading. I often forget Jesus drew from Torah for many of his stories. He didn't operate in a holy vacuum, making up everything he said from scratch.

The preacher began by talking about prescription drugs and their possible side effects... how Madison Avenue has made a killing with advertising for prescription medications of all kinds, (not just the ones to enhance your physical abilities in bed.) The theory is you'll go to your doctor and ask for the drug. If the doctor prescribes it, then you'll also get a large piece of paper with all the possible side effects: nausea, headache, diarrhea (he didn't use that word) and muscle pain. It comes down to the fact that you're betting that the meds will do their job without you having to deal with the side effects. His analogy was that everything in the lessons for Sunday dealt with choice and the side effects of those choices.

In the Isaiah vineyard story God built, planted and took great care to tend His vineyard. But instead of getting a nice crop of grapes, he got sour ones. In that version it's clear that Israel, the people, are the grapes. They've entered into a relationship with God based on a covenant, where both parties have made promises, have responsibilities. God keeps His side of the covenant and expects His people to keep theirs. But they don't. Instead they are wild grapes, a people who rebel and don't honor the relationship.

While the imagery is the same for the Gospel, it's now a case of vineyard owner versus tenants. Still, there's the underlying idea of covenant: it's his vineyard after all, and the owner expects to collect his share of the harvest. But... when he sends his servants to collect, the tenants beat them up, and some servants are actually killed. After all this, the owner says to himself, "I'll send my son. Surely they will respect him." But they don't.

Let me stop right here and spin off on a tangent. Am I the only person who's ever thought the owner is naive? These tenants have just killed his servants. He did nothing. They think the place is theirs. Why would they even hesitate to kill the son? I must be missing something historical, contextual, huge... because I don't get it. 

Except of course, I do. 

The analogy that God is patient and forgiving and loving and full of mercy, giving us the benefit of the doubt time after time is clear. But both these lessons have a warning. In both these stories, there's an end to the mercy. In the first, the vineyard is trashed and allowed to be overrun with weeds. In the second, it will be given to new tenants. In the early Christian movement, they probably thought they were the new tenants. A lot of us probably still think that's the case. But the truth remains that Christians behave with the same rebelliousness, greed and self-absorption as Israel did in Isaiah's time.

Our priest said, "These are hard lessons." 

Why? Well, first of all nobody likes to admit guilt. "Not my responsibility" or "I didn't know." are two of the standard excuses when a catastrophe occurs. Take your pick... the latest debacle on Wall Street will do. "I'm not greedy like those guys. I'm just trying to get along in this dog-eat-dog world, make a decent living, give my kids a better life." 

Except... we've all bought into some pretty lame substitutes for a better life. Our kids sit in front of TVs that tell them they'll be prettier, more popular more in... with anything and everything from designer jeans to the latest Barbie, and adults will be happier, more attractive, more successful... with a bigger house, a cushier car and prescription drugs to enhance our physical abilities in bed. We didn't have to buy that story. But we all did (and do) to some degree. So here come the side effects.

"The Kingdom of God will be taken away and given to others." In our day and age, how does that work? On Sunday, the priest had his own idea about how it happens. He thinks it won't be a drastic thing... more like erosion. Certain things lapse and ethics become lax. He wondered aloud how many people ask themselves "What does God want from me?" rather than "What do I want?" Not so many. I know that even in the convent it's an issue. We, who have given our lives to God are still plagued with the "I wants" instead of the "God wants" or even worse, we pretend that God wants what we want. 

And yet, in times of disaster, it seems to me easier to hear the hard lessons, to swallow the medicine that will make us well again. We are a greedy people. Yet when that greed is paying off, who wants to hear it's wrong? Only when the house of cards begins to tumble do we buck up and get clear about our priorities. Maybe now is the best time to hear these lessons.

Home is...

Home is... where the heart is, something you can never return to, where they have to love you whether they like you or not. All those definitions apply in one way or another, yet none of them can describe the sense of home.

I've had a lot of homes in my life, have had to leave a lot of them for assorted reasons, and the idea that you can't ever go back, not really, is as clear as glass. But you can go back to the memories, and as I do that, year after year when I visit Newport, I recapture some sense of what home was for me then.

The beach is my place... for whatever reason... Irish genes, childhood joys, the fact that we all evolved at some point from the sea, and Newport, Rhode Island, was the closest I ever got to living near the beach. You could say I  lived near enough, all those years in Jacksonville, Florida, but the ocean was eighteen miles away. I lived near the river. The river is lovely, but it is not the beach.

The smell of salt, seaweed, decaying fish, the cool breeze off the water, the sound of waves slapping the sand, or crashing against rocks, the whole salty-sandy-sticky earthiness of the experience is what takes me away. Where do I go? I go to God. In the cosmic sense, I go to the beauty and breathtaking created world... the sheer expanse of blue sky scudded with clouds atop the equally majestic expanse of water below. But I also go inside. I remember things at random... childhood things, beach things, talks I've had with God that were never resolved, the choices I've made over a lifetime that have been wise or foolish, but have led me here... to now, to this latest place I call home.

Last night I unpacked. I pulled out my beach dress, the cover-up I wear over my bathing suit. It smelled of salt and seaweed and suntan lotion. I put it on and wore it to bed. 

Newport Report

Come Saturday Morning... that's a song I remember from my past somewhere. Saturday morning it is. Today is my last full day of rest time... where did it go?

As I said goodnight to one of our elders last Sunday night, she asked me "How long will you be gone?" "Just a week," I said, more to assure her I'd be home soon than to comment on the length of time I'd get to play. "Oh, that's not enough," she replied. I smiled, "It will have to do."

Vacations are like that, aren't they? You either have the kind where the days fly by and it's time to leave before you know it, or the kind where you're slipping things into your suitcase two or three days before it's time to go.

I used to be a four-day-girl. That was the exact amount of time I could spend before I started getting antsy to get back home, back to work, back to my own bed. Not this trip. My work at home can be done by others. (Not that any of them wants to keep doing my share.) My bed here is way more comfortable than my own, and it feels like I've just not had enough beach time to rest my weary soul. I haven't. It's rained a bit... cold rain. We went to the movies on one of those days, (Mama Mia!) and drove around shopping on another. On another I just cuddled up with my books and the remote control. TV is such a novelty, even if there's nothing I want to watch. 

Yesterday was sunny. Wahoo! So off we went around noon... loaded down with umbrellas, beach chairs, our books, a cooler, towels. 

I remember my first husband lamenting his days when he could go to the beach with just a towel. At that time we were also lugging all the kiddie paraphernalia: pails and shovels, rafts, blanket, towels, the cooler. Going to the beach was an expedition, and the combination of sand and salt water usually left everyone a bit cranky. 

My second husband disliked the beach. He was fair-skinned and burned easily, so it was always time to leave just as everyone else was getting comfortable. He'd tap his watch impatiently to wrangle the kids out of the water, and we'd begin packing up. The "beach" also meant sand in the car, and he carried big gallon jugs of water to wash everyone's feet right before boarding. "Stay on the towel!" he'd shout to the sandy offenders in the back seat. Everyone was a bit cranky.

Yesterday my friend and I spent most of the afternoon under our umbrellas, reading. We walked the shore a bit (lots of seaweed, no shells) and took turns lying in the sun on the blanket. When it was time to come home, nobody was cranky.

I'm not sure what we'll do today, but it looks like it might be sunny again... :)